The , also known as the , was a domain of the

Tokugawa Shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

during the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

from 1583 to 1871."Kaga Province" at JapaneseCastleExplorer.com
retrieved 2013-4-9. The Kaga Domain was based at Kanazawa Castle in

Kaga Province was a province of Japan in the area that is today the south and western portion of Ishikawa Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Kaga bordered on Echizen, Etchū, Hida, and Noto Provinces. It was part of Hokurikudō Circuit. Its ...

, in the modern city of

Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Etymology The name "Kanazaw ...

, located in the

Chūbu region The , Central region, or is a region in the middle of Honshū, Japan's main island. In a wide, classical definition, it encompasses nine prefectures (''ken''): Aichi, Fukui, Gifu, Ishikawa, Nagano, Niigata, Shizuoka, Toyama, and Ya ...

of the island of

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

. The Kaga Domain was ruled for its existence by the '' tozama'' ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of the Maeda, and covered most of Kaga Province and

Etchū Province was a province of Japan in the area that is today Toyama Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Etchū bordered on Noto and Kaga Provinces to the west, Shinano and Hida Provinces to the south, Echigo Province to the east and the Sea o ...

and all of Noto Province in the

Hokuriku region The is located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lies along the Sea of Japan and is part of the larger Chūbu region. It is almost equivalent to the former Koshi Province (Japan), Koshi Province and Hokurikudō are ...

. The Kaga Domain had an assessed '' kokudaka'' of over one million ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

'', making it by far the largest domain of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Kaga Domain was dissolved in the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

in 1871 by the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

and its territory was absorbed into

Ishikawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu island. Ishikawa Prefecture has a population of 1,096,721 (1 January 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,186 Square kilometre, km2 (1,616 sq mi). Ishikawa Pr ...

and

Toyama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Toyama Prefecture has a population of 993,848 (1 January 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,247.61 km2 (1,640.01 sq mi). Toyama Prefecture borders Ishikawa Prefecture to the ...

History

Maeda Toshiie was one of the leading generals of Oda Nobunaga following the Sengoku period of the 16th century extending to the Azuchi–Momoyama period. His preferred weapon was a yari and he was known as "Yari no Mataza" (槍の又左), Matazaemon (又左 ...

was a distinguished military commander, a retainer of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

and a close friend of

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

. A member of the

Council of Five Elders In the history of Japan, the was a group of five powerful formed in 1598 by the Toyotomi Hideyoshi, shortly before his death the same year. While Hideyoshi was on his deathbed, his son, Toyotomi Hideyori, was still only five years old and a ...

who ruled Japan during the Sengoku period, he was granted the Kaga Domain in 1583. His eldest son, Maeda Toshinaga, supported

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

in his rise to power and was rewarded by an increase in his lands to 1.25 million ''koku''. Toshinaga was succeeded by his brother

Maeda Toshitsune was an early-Edo period Japanese samurai, and the 2nd ''daimyō'' of Kaga Domain in the Hokuriku region of Japan, and the 3rd hereditary chieftain of the Maeda clan. Toshitsune was a brother of Maeda Toshinaga and a son of Maeda Toshiie. He ...

, who created two cadet branches of the clan: *

Toyama Domain was a Han (Japan), feudal domain in Edo period Japan, located in Etchū Province (modern-day Toyama Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Toyama Castle in what is now the city of Toyama, Toyama, Toyama. Throughout its history, it was ruled by a ...

(100,000 ''koku''), headed by descendants of Toshitsune's second son Toshitsugu (1617–1674) * Daishōji Domain (100,000 ''koku''), headed by descendants of Toshitsune's fourth son Toshiaki (1638–1692) A third cadet line was founded by Toshitsune's brother Maeda Toshitaka for his services during the

Siege of Osaka A siege () . is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecrafts or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict charact ...

. This branch held the Nanokaichi Domain, rated at the minimum of 10,000 ''koku''. The

Maeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan who occupied most of the Hokuriku region of central Honshū from the end of the Sengoku period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Maeda claimed descent from the Sugawara clan through Sugawara no Kiyotom ...

ruled the Kaga Domain for the entirety of its existence until the abolition of the domains in 1871 after the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

and the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The location of the main

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

residence of the Kaga Domain's ''daimyō'' is now the site of the Hongō campus of the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

Holdings

As with most domains in the ''han'' system, the Kaga Domain consisted of discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned '' kokudaka'', based on periodic

cadastral A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes and bounds, metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represente ...

surveys and projected agricultural yields. At the end of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, the Kaga Domain consisted of the following holdings: *

** 177 villages in Kahoku District (all of district) ** 235 villages in Ishikawa District (all of district) ** 205 villages in Nomi District (all except 18 villages) * Noto Province ** 177 villages in Hakui District (all of district) ** 128 villages in Kashima District (all of district) ** 229 villages in Fugeshi District (all of district) ** 75 villages in Suzu District (all except one village, which was shared) *

**220 villages in Imizu District (all of district) **490 villages in Tonami District (all of district) **409 villages in Niikawa District (all of district) *

Ōmi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Shiga Prefecture. It was one of the provinces that made up the Tōsandō Circuit (subnational entity), circuit. Its nickname is . Under the ''Engishiki'' classification system, ...

**3 villages in Takashima District

List of ''daimyōs''

Genealogy

The clan records were preserved over the course of centuries.前田氏 at ReichsArchiv.jp
retrieved 2013-7-9. * I. Toshiie, 1st ''daimyō'' of Kaga (cr. 1583) (1539–1599; r. 1583–1599) ** II. Toshinaga, 2nd ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1562–1614; r. 1599–1605) ** III. Toshitsune, 3rd ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1594–1658; r. 1605–1639) *** IV. Mitsutaka, 4th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1616–1645; r. 1639–1645) **** V. Tsunanori, 5th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1643–1724; r. 1645–1723) ***** VI. Yoshinori, 6th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1690–1745; r. 1723–1745) ****** VII. Munetoki, 7th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1725–1747; r. 1745–1747) ****** VIII. Shigehiro, 8th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1729–1753; r. 1747–1753) ****** IX. Shigenobu, 9th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1735–1753; r. 1753) ****** X. Shigemichi, 10th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1741–1786; r. 1754–1771) ******* XII. Narinaga, 12th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1782–1824; r. 1802–1822) ******** XIII. Nariyasu, 13th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1811–1884; r. 1822–1866) ********* XIV. Yoshiyasu, 14th ''daimyō'' of Kaga, 14th family head (1830–1874; r. 1866–1869; Governor: 1869–1871; family head: 1869–1874) ********** Yoshitsugu, 15th family head, 1st Marquess (1858–1900; 15th family head 1874–1900, Marquess: 1884). ****** XI. Harunaga, 11th ''daimyō'' of Kaga (1745–1810; r. 1771–1802). *****Toshiaki, 4th ''daimyō'' of Kaga-Daishōji (1691–1737) ******Toshimichi, 5th ''daimyō'' of Kaga-Daishōji (1733–1781) *******Toshitoyo, 9th ''daimyō'' of Etchū-Toyama (1771–1836) ********Toshihiro, 11th ''daimyō'' of Ueno-Nanokaichi (1823–1877) *********Toshiaki, Governor of Nanokaichi, 1st Viscount (1850–1896; Governor of Nanokaichi 1869–1871, created 1st Viscount 1884) **********Toshinari, 16th family head, 2nd Marquess (1885–1942; 16th family head and 2nd Marquess 1900–1942) ***********Toshitatsu, 17th family head, 3rd Marquess (1908–1989; 17th family head 1942–1989, 3rd Marquess 1942–1947) ************Toshihiro, 18th family head (1935– ; 18th family head 1989–2022) *************Toshitaka (1963–) : 19th family head 2022 - **************Toshikyo (1993–)

History

Holdings

List of ''daimyōs''

Genealogy

See also

References

Further reading